PhD Student at TZS
When asked what makes the northern Baltic Sea special, you might think about the vast expanses of ice that can transform the sea during the winter. But what you might not think so much about, is that in the summer parts of the archipelagos are transformed underwater by vibrant plant meadows. These meadows are also special to the northern Baltic because they are highly diverse with a unique assembly of plant species. We can use these meadows to ask questions that would be difficult to answer elsewhere. I investigate how the characteristics of plants affect ecosystem processes such as primary production and nutrient cycling, from individual to community scale. By doing this, we can better understand the underlying mechanisms which direct the fate of ecosystem processes in aquatic plant communities.
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Postdoctoral Researcher at TZS, Guest Researcher at Uni. Southern Denmark
My research explores the productivity of coastal waters and the factors that drive fundamental ecosystem processes such as primary productivity and respiration. Seafloor habitats are a key focus of my work, because they represent hotspots of biodiversity and productivity within the coastal zone but they remain poorly studied. Filling in this knowledge gap requires a novel interdisciplinary approach that investigates productivity rates in combination with other factors of influence such as sunlight and nutrient availability, hydrodynamics, and biodiversity. The success of this work is tightly linked to the use of new and evolving technologies such as Aquatic Eddy Covariance and microsensor techniques.
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Karl’s profile in the University of Helsinki research portal and Karl’s profile in Google Scholar.
PhD student at TZS and Baltic Sea Centre, Stockholm University
My main interests are coastal ecology and management. I study ecosystem functions in the coastal zone, focusing on Baltic Sea benthic invertebrate animals and plants. I also look at how the joint effects of climate change and human-induced pressures such as nutrient loads might change the functioning of the benthic system and the ecosystem services it provides through model simulations.
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Post-doctoral rearcher at University of Auckland and TZS.
I am a field ecologist and I am interested in biodiversity and ecosystem function in coastal soft-sediment, seagrass, and mangrove ecosystems. My current research focus is on the traits that make seafloor ecosystems resilient to human disturbances. Coastal marine ecosystems are some of the most impacted by multiple human activities, and my research aims to understand how different elements of biodiversity protect against the loss of ecosystem function under human disturbances in the coastal environment. Specifically, I am interested in teasing apart the elements of biodiversity that make seafloor macrofaunal communities resilient to human disturbances that occur at different spatial and temporal scales. My research aims to find practical ways to assess vulnerability of coastal marine ecosystems to future Anthropogenic pressures and disturbances.
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Projects involved:
Rebecca’s profile at google scholar.
PhD student, Aquatic Biogeochemistry Research Unit and TZS
I am studying sediment erodibility and resuspension in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea. I am specifically interested in the environmental drivers behind the spatial and temporal variability of sediment erodibility in natural environments.
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Mari's profile in the University of Helsinki research portal.
PhD student at TZS
I am investigating the reasons behind a recent decline of flounders at the Finnish coast. Flounders are the most common flatfishes in the Baltic Sea. They are marine benthivorous fishes and important fishery targets. I am especially interested in the mechanisms controlling population/stock variability of flounders in the northern Baltic Sea. Recent findings have revealed that the flounders in the northern Baltic Sea in fact consist of two distinct species, constituting mixed stocks with temporally and spatially shifting dominance ratios. These findings do not only change the basis for stock assessments, management and conservation of Baltic flounders, but also profoundly change how we understand the ecology of the mixed populations and how we should study these fishes and their stock dynamics now and in the future.
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Henri’s profile in the University of Helsinki research portal and Henri's profile in ResearchGate.
PhD student at TZS
The project examines the role of increasing accumulations of drifting detritus on the organic carbon fate of key coastal habitats in the Baltic Sea. The overall aim of this project is to study the fate of macroalgae-derived organic carbon, and examine how detritus source characteristics might affect the composition of organic carbon in coastal areas influenced by large external inputs of algal detritus. An additional aim is to investigate how this role may change seasonally.
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Kahma's profile in the University of Helsinki research portal.
Researcher at TZS, University of Helsinki and the Baltic Bridge, Stockholm University
My research focuses on exploring the role of key coastal habitats (e.g. bladder-wrack and blue mussel rocky beds, seagrass and bare soft-sediments) in the biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of the Baltic Sea. We are using the Aquatic Eddy Covariance as a cutting-edge way to quantify habitat-function relationships across key coastal habitats. I am also interested in the effects of increasing accumulations of drifting macroalgal detritus on the functioning of coastal habitats. I study how detritus source dynamics and characteristics might affect benthic communities, oxygen dynamics and the composition of carbon in coastal areas affected by eutrophication and influenced by large drifting accumulations.
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Iván’s profile in the University of Helsinki research portal and Iván’s profile in Google Scholar.
Researcher at TZS
I have been studying blue mussel population dynamics at Tvärminne Zoological Station for > 20 years. My research interest circle around spatial ecology, also including temporal questions, i.e. how and why species use their environment as they do and how a changing environment affect their ecology. I am also interested in community ecology, including in addition to benthic invertebrates also macrophytes and fish. My recent 10 years were spent as senior advisor and conservation biologist at the state owned enterprise Metsähallitus. Through the day-to-day work with marine conservation issues, including legislation, environmental assessments and management, my niche and interest lies in the interface between ecosystem ecology and applied ecology.
Research project:
Mats’ profile in the University of Helsinki research portal and Mats’ profile in ResearchGate.